Microsoft Windows Vista Service Pack 1

Higher degree of program compatibility than with the RTM version. Increased speed when copying large files and connecting to networked PCs. Overall speed improvement as well. Improvements in BitLocker encryption. Configurable Search option.

Cons

No real indication of memory fixes when using large graphics files.

Bottom Line

Microsoft Vista SP1 represents a significant first move toward a faster, more secure, and slightly more open Vista.

I did no formal benchmark testing to write this review. Here I simply offer some informal results, based primarily on measuring task times by looking at my wristwatchclose enough for the kinds of tasksI tested.

My clean installation of Ultimate with SP1 unquestionably behaved more snappily than either the original Vista or Vista with SP1 downloaded and installed. Snappiness refers to the speed at which menus respond, windows are redrawn, programs and data files open and close, and so forth. From the beginning, Vista had some significant issues with excessive hard drive use. The drive light would routinely stay fully or mostly lit for many minutes at a time, even when most programs had been closed. The downloaded SP1 improved this quite a bit, resulting in crisper performance, but the clean installation has improved the situation enormously. Then again, the clean installation has fewer programs installed, so you can't make a direct comparison.

But even with Office 2007 Professional, Adobe Creative Suite CS3, and Norton System Works 2008 on the machine and various components of each running (Outlook, Word, InDesign, Acrobat, and Norton AV, for instance), the drive light stayed remarkably unlit on the SP1 clean install. This issue bears watching: If the difference turns out to be as significant as it seems, then it alone is reason to upgrade. Interestingly, Microsoft does not tout this change in its official SP1 literature, but the company does acknowledge that SP1 does more caching to speed performance.

What Microsoft does publicize is an improvement in the speed of copying filesboth between local drives and from local drives to network sharesas well as the speed in extracting files from compressed folders. My results show an improvement, but nothing to get excited about, unless you do such copying frequently and with large files and folders. This kind of improvement is vastly more important in the enterprise sector, of course (where pushing files to network shares goes on all the time) than for individual users.

Still, extracting from compressed folders on my machine showed an improvement of roughly 25 to 30 percent, while copying large folders (12GB was the largest I tried) demonstrated speed increases of about 20 percent. For local folder transfers, Vista still isn't up to the speed of Windows XP running SP2, although according to my informal observations it's within 10 percent. On my machines, the updated OS extracted from compressed folders almost twice as quickly as XP, but then again, unless you regularly work with gigabyte-size compressed folders, you're unlikely to notice a practical difference.

The time Vista takes to return from hibernation mode has dropped markedly (by about half, in fact); it takes even less time with my clean install. Wake time was a major irritation when using Vista RTM, not only for laptop users (a fact Microsoft quickly recognized) but also, from my experience, when running the OS on desktops. With both the download install and the clean install of SP1, I no longer have time to make coffee after pushing the power button on my desktop PC to bring it out of hibernation. Better still, with drive access no longer constant, I can start work (or play) that much more quickly.

But actually, I no longer recommend hibernation as the best method for stopping your PC from eating power. By all accounts, sleep mode offers very nearly the same power savings, and coming out of it with SP1 takes only a few seconds. The update has also come a fair distance in correcting the problems RTM had with entering sleep or hibernate mode automatically (I typically had to resort to forcing my PC into those modes manually). On my download SP1 install, however, I still notice that, when running numerous programs, sleep sometimes doesn't initiate automatically. It does on my clean install, so obviously I have something installed and running on the download install that's blocking sleep/hibernate entry.

According to Microsoft, SP1 improves waking up from both modes, and two improvements contribute to the change. First, the update makes better use of ReadyBoost, which uses portable RAMfor example, SD cards (such as those for cameras) and Flash memoryfor secondary memory. SP1 also takes better advantage of SuperFetch, an algorithm that improves the use of system RAM for users by giving their programs a higher priority than background tasks.

I can't, however, honestly say I saw any improvement when I ran my SP1 installations first without, then with, a 1GB USB thumb drive plugged in (and Vista had automatically recognized and started using the drive for ReadyBoost). The idea behind ReadyBoost is certainly right, though, and it makes those inexpensive thumb drives even more useful. By all means, plug them in and give Vista more memory to work with.

The speed of other day-to-day tasks has improved as well. Opening Windows Explorer for the first time in a session (which on my desktop took at least a full 30 seconds, and as long as a full minute) now takes an acceptable 10 to 15 seconds even on a system fully stocked with software, and only 3 to 4 seconds on my clean installation. Microsoft also boasts about speed improvements in Internet Explorer 7, both in its ability to work with JScript and its reading and loading of large images. I found no proof of the former, but I can say that spending a couple of hours on sites that offered high-res images did reveal some, if not drastic, improvement in the speed of the downloading and displaying those files. Finally, all users will welcome the fact that SP1 has mostly eliminated the wait for the Password box to appear after pressing Ctrl-Alt-Delete to log in.Next: Security

PCMag may earn affiliate commissions from the shopping links included on this page. These commissions do not affect how we test, rate or review products. To find out more, read our complete terms of use.